Definition: "used in reference to a fit of extreme anger that temporarily clouds a person's judgement."

That is what happened to Vettel in Baku. His action was set to gain him nothing. It was a pure act of anger.

Senna driving into Prost in 89 was set to gain him the world championship and an action he somewhat planned long before. Senna did not see red mist, it was the complete opposite - a calculated move to remove his rival for perceived injustices he wrongly or rightly felt (Prost doing it to him in 88 and the pole not being moved in 1989). Senna has since said he decided he would go for it no matter what, that is a calculated decision that he consider long before acting.

Mixed your dates here I think. I agree in everything otherwise

I changed it, I was 1 year out on all of them.

Ok, I hope I didn't sound like I was nitpicking, wasn't meant like that

In sum, Senna competed in 161 GPs. He won 41 times, and finished on the podium 80 times (50%). But don’t forget… He either retired or was DSQ’d 53 times (33%) while driving the very best (most reliable) cars available 9 out of his ten years. This left him with just half as many mid-pack finishes (28, or 17%) as DNFs, demonstrating a lopsided, “all or nothing” pattern…A good representation of a “Checkers or Wreckers” driving record.

For some context of Senna's 33%. Prost retired or was DSQ’d 58 times (29%). So is Alain Prost a "Checker or Wrecker" too?

1984-1990 was best 11 results from 16 races. Winning races was the important thing that is why Senna won the title in 1988 over Prost

Note in 1991, the first year in which all races counted toward the title. Senna recorded by far his highest finishing rate with 15 classified finishes in 16 races and 0 collisions all year. Which, correct me if I wrong, I believe he set the record for most amount of finishes in a single season with 15. You think that's a coincidence or Senna drove to the points system?

Furthermore, you say Senna drove the best and most reliable cars for 9 out of 10 of his years in F1? How do you arrive at such a conclusion? At least 6 of the cars he drove weren't the best package factoring speed and reliability, in fact nearly all 6 of them were neither (84 Toleman, 85 Lotus, 86 Lotus, 87 Lotus, 92 Mclaren, 93 Mclaren) and arguably 1 or 2 more cars too.

Last edited by lamo on Thu Jan 11, 2018 3:41 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Definition: "used in reference to a fit of extreme anger that temporarily clouds a person's judgement."

That is what happened to Vettel in Baku. His action was set to gain him nothing. It was a pure act of anger.

Senna driving into Prost in 89 was set to gain him the world championship and an action he somewhat planned long before. Senna did not see red mist, it was the complete opposite - a calculated move to remove his rival for perceived injustices he wrongly or rightly felt (Prost doing it to him in 88 and the pole not being moved in 1989). Senna has since said he decided he would go for it no matter what, that is a calculated decision that he consider long before acting.

Mixed your dates here I think. I agree in everything otherwise

I changed it, I was 1 year out on all of them.

Ok, I hope I didn't sound like I was nitpicking, wasn't meant like that

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

This is indeed correct, Senna was already considered by many as the greatest driver of all time by the early 1990s. Alain Prost was also considered by many as one of and by some the greatest driver of all time around 85-88 but that notion died down once he was paired with Senna who took that title from him in a lot of peoples eyes around 88-91.

The same with Schumacher, by 98/99 he was already being considered one of it not the greatest of all time. If he perished in the accident at Silverstone in 1999 he had already done enough in those first 7 years to be considered for the greatest of all time.

You will disagree but I think less so in recent years. 10 or 20 years ago it was hard to find a "greatest driver" pole that didn't have Senna at the top. Now I think people generally take a more realistic view. Personally I rate him a shade better than Prost but agree that you could rate their careers pretty evenly. Both would make my top 5 GOAT and neither would be at the top of my list.

Also I think it ridiculous the claims that Senna's career was elevated because of his death, would the same be said of Jim Clark I wonder and how often do you hear of Joachim Rindt being listed among the greats because he died on the track the year he won the title?

I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

Was you old enough to watch Senna race, Zoue?

I had that privilege, yes. I first got hooked around 1981/82. Piquet was my favourite at the time

There's something unique about Vettel's Baku crash, which I will highlight by comparing it with all the other pre-meditated collisions I know about or have witnessed, in F1:

> Senna colliding with Prost in 1990. It was a pre-meditated collision, and a horrible, dangerous example to set. However, I can see the BENEFIT behind doing it. Senna won the championship.

> Schumacher collides with Hill in 1994. Again, a despicable move, but I can see why he did it, the BENEFIT. He saw his championship disappearing, and was prepared to do anything, right or wrong.

> Schumacher on Villeneuve, 1997. Again, same as 1997. Disappearing championship, so he saw a BENEFIT to his despicable move.

> Schumacher in Monaco qualifying, 2006, parking with a fake mistake, to stop others from getting pole. Stupid move, but he saw a BENEFIT. He was losing ground in the championship, and would've thought he won't win in Monaco otherwise.

> Alonso blocking Hamilton in Hungary qualifying, 2007. Fernando was also a bit angry, but it was still a calculated move with his physio counting down on the radio, so Hamilton doesn't get pole, which according to the team's rules, Alonso should've had the last crack at.Hamilton broke the team rules, and Alonso was being unfairly punished. So, in his head, the blocking was to his BENEFIT, making sure Hamilton didn't get the upper hand.

> Rosberg in 2014 Monaco qualifying. Same as Schumacher in 2006, he was losing ground to Hamilton, and he wanted the Monaco win really badly. Of course it's cheating, but at least he saw a BENEFIT.

> Rosberg in 2014 Belgium. He was losing points to his teammate, so he saw an excuse to harm his teammate by puncturing his tyre, and worse case, both retire and he loses no points. As it is, he gained. Again, shady driving, but his mind saw a BENEFIT.

Then came Sebastian at Baku.

I try to see it from his POV, and even then, it makes no sense.

"Hamilton just brake tested me".

"I must have revenge. He should be punished results wise. So I'll complain on the radio, they'll investigate, and he would be penalised."

But then he goes and bangs his car into Hamilton's. What BENEFIT did he see? That Hamilton would retire with damage? Then I'm sure Vettel would've been disqualified AND banned for a race/races, hence losing more points. No, like the previous collisions, it was a despicable move, but the difference being, this had NO BENEFIT, and hence, was just extremely stupid.

And after a lot of thinking, I could only find one other such on-track instance in high level motorsport. At least Sebastian is in esteemed company. And that move is:

Rossi kicking Marquez on to the tarmac, in anger. Funny how Vettel's and Rossi's moves are so similar, and both are extraordinary examples of brainfade by champions.

However, Rossi's had a bigger trigger, with Marquez helping Lorenzo for a few races, and many laps of insane blocking on Rossi. Vettel lost his cool in one tiny, safety car induced, not actual brake testing. It really is an extraordinary, embarrassing brainfade, specially for a 4x WDC.

There's something unique about Vettel's Baku crash, which I will highlight by comparing it with all the other pre-meditated collisions I know about or have witnessed, in F1:

> Senna colliding with Prost in 1990. It was a pre-meditated collision, and a horrible, dangerous example to set. However, I can see the BENEFIT behind doing it. Senna won the championship.

> Schumacher collides with Hill in 1994. Again, a despicable move, but I can see why he did it, the BENEFIT. He saw his championship disappearing, and was prepared to do anything, right or wrong.

> Schumacher on Villeneuve, 1997. Again, same as 1997. Disappearing championship, so he saw a BENEFIT to his despicable move.

> Schumacher in Monaco qualifying, 2006, parking with a fake mistake, to stop others from getting pole. Stupid move, but he saw a BENEFIT. He was losing ground in the championship, and would've thought he won't win in Monaco otherwise.

> Alonso blocking Hamilton in Hungary qualifying, 2007. Fernando was also a bit angry, but it was still a calculated move with his physio counting down on the radio, so Hamilton doesn't get pole, which according to the team's rules, Alonso should've had the last crack at.Hamilton broke the team rules, and Alonso was being unfairly punished. So, in his head, the blocking was to his BENEFIT, making sure Hamilton didn't get the upper hand.

> Rosberg in 2014 Monaco qualifying. Same as Schumacher in 2006, he was losing ground to Hamilton, and he wanted the Monaco win really badly. Of course it's cheating, but at least he saw a BENEFIT.

> Rosberg in 2014 Belgium. He was losing points to his teammate, so he saw an excuse to harm his teammate by puncturing his tyre, and worse case, both retire and he loses no points. As it is, he gained. Again, shady driving, but his mind saw a BENEFIT.

Then came Sebastian at Baku.

I try to see it from his POV, and even then, it makes no sense.

"Hamilton just brake tested me".

"I must have revenge. He should be punished results wise. So I'll complain on the radio, they'll investigate, and he would be penalised."

But then he goes and bangs his car into Hamilton's. What BENEFIT did he see? That Hamilton would retire with damage? Then I'm sure Vettel would've been disqualified AND banned for a race/races, hence losing more points. No, like the previous collisions, it was a despicable move, but the difference being, this had NO BENEFIT, and hence, was just extremely stupid.

And after a lot of thinking, I could only find one other such on-track instance in high level motorsport. At least Sebastian is in esteemed company. And that move is:

Rossi kicking Marquez on to the tarmac, in anger. Funny how Vettel's and Rossi's moves are so similar, and both are extraordinary examples of brainfade by champions.

However, Rossi's had a bigger trigger, with Marquez helping Lorenzo for a few races, and many laps of insane blocking on Rossi. Vettel lost his cool in one tiny, safety car induced, not actual brake testing. It really is an extraordinary, embarrassing brainfade, specially for a 4x WDC.

I think you are confusing this. Vettel's actions were just red mist. Red mist means you don't think logically, your anger is clouding your judgement. Senna's move was premeditated, granted. Senna's, Schumacher's and Rosberg's Monaco shenanigans as well, they had plenty of time to see that their laps were not going to cut it and thought of stalling their opposition. But Vettel just saw red in front of him, I doubt he had time to think the pro's and con's and find benefit in his action.

Definition: "used in reference to a fit of extreme anger that temporarily clouds a person's judgement."

That is what happened to Vettel in Baku. His action was set to gain him nothing. It was a pure act of anger.

Senna driving into Prost in 90 was set to gain him the world championship and an action he somewhat planned long before. Senna did not see red mist, it was the complete opposite - a calculated move to remove his rival for perceived injustices he wrongly or rightly felt (Prost doing it to him in 89 and the pole not being moved in 1990). Senna has since said he decided he would go for it no matter what, that is a calculated decision that he consider long before acting.

Sorry, but I believe Ayrton Senna drove in a red mist frequently. The red mist clearly exhibited when he walked out of the driver's meeting just before the start at Suzuka 1990 carried over to the start. He was beyond angry. At the time, I told myself, "This is not going to go well." And it didn't.

I've seen many fistfights watching NASCAR racing here in the states. But I don't recall ever seeing a fistfight in F1... until Japan 1993, when Senna ran to the Jordan garage after the race and punched Eddie Irvine in the face. Not an on-track red mist, but a red mist regardless.

The sum total of the many Senna interviews I watched through the years showed him to be a very emotional, feelings-on-his-sleeve personality. But it also hinted that he was quite self-centered and ruthlessly arrogant, someone who expected all others to move aside for him at every instance. That's not calculation, that's selfish arrogance. You could describe this as very emotional, if you want to be generous. But my psychology degree thinks otherwise.

To review, I enjoyed watching Senna's career. He was an excellent driver with fierce courage, that (sometimes) was reckless... throughout his career. Kudos to him for his accomplishments. However, many times I turned on the tele, set up my VCR to record, while asking myself, "Well, is he going to win today, or is he going to kill himself (and someone else)?"

_________________Short-time member, Life-Long Fan from 1965 -- More than 550 Grand Prix recorded since 1982 (all but 3), and counting...

Last edited by MB-BOB on Thu Jan 11, 2018 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

I think Senna's rating did receive a bump after his death but he was already in the conversation for GOAT anyway. Most people, when ased to pick a top 5 of all time go for Clark, Fangio, Prost, Schumacher and Senna. I think you could put those in any order and it be reasonable.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

First of all, he was considerably faster that all his teammates with the exception of Prost outside a few races where he was "inexplicably" faster when Prost knew he got every last bit of performance his car had to offer. The worst kept secret in McLaren history was the fact that Senna was Honda's golden boy and they made sure his equipment received that little bit more attention. That's not a level playing field.

Schumacher on the other hand whooped up on his teammates so easily that Brawn and company can't explain it. So good was Schumacher that his teammates would provide feedback as to what the cars were doing and they'd make changes to address the issues for his teammates but Schumacher hit the track and there was no difference in timing. As far as I know that was NEVER the case with Senna and setup changes affected him to some degree.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

There's a lot to disagree with here.

Firstly, saying Prost beat Senna in his final year needs context. The Williams was by far the quickest car, as evidenced by the fact that they failed to get pole only once all season (and then it was Senna, surprise, surprise, who wrested that away from them). To put that in perspective, in the last year they were team mates Prost got two poles to Senna's thirteen, exactly the same as the previous year, so Prost getting thirteen in 1993 is fairly conclusive that the Ferrari was the comfortably quicker car. In Brazil, one of the shortest circuits on the calendar, Senna was 1.8 seconds behind Prost. I think it's clear who had the uphill battle there. Prost beating Senna to the title is in no way a reflection of their comparable abilities.

Secondly, no-one's saying Senna couldn't be beaten, but when he was it was usually clear that it was his machinery that let him down, not the driver. That said, most acknowledged that Prost was also one of the greats himself, but it was a rare individual who put Prost above Senna at the end. Since then, of course, standards have changed and opinions shifted, but at the time Senna's name was synonymous with speed.

Thirdly, saying that Senna was "only just so" quicker than everyone else? Not according to his qualifying record. He wasn't known as the King of Pole for nothing and often the gaps to his team mate were significant.

Finally, deciding whether he was better than Schumacher or Prost is a moot point when talking about Senna's status at the time of his death. Both of the people you are comparing him to are also in almost everybody's top ten of all time, and only one of the three is dead. And all three had sky-high reputations while they were still racing. Neither Prost, not Schumacher's reputations are affected by them being alive, and Schumacher's legacy as possibly the best ever was established long before his unfortunate accident. There's just no reason to state that Senna's reputation owes anything to his death, especially when viewed against those other two

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

First of all, he was considerably faster that all his teammates with the exception of Prost outside a few races where he was "inexplicably" faster when Prost knew he got every last bit of performance his car had to offer. The worst kept secret in McLaren history was the fact that Senna was Honda's golden boy and they made sure his equipment received that little bit more attention. That's not a level playing field.

Schumacher on the other hand whooped up on his teammates so easily that Brawn and company can't explain it. So good was Schumacher that his teammates would provide feedback as to what the cars were doing and they'd make changes to address the issues for his teammates but Schumacher hit the track and there was no difference in timing. As far as I know that was NEVER the case with Senna and setup changes affected him to some degree.

Schumacher never had a team mate with the speed of Prost so it's hardly comparing like for like. Even Prost rarely beat Senna in quali. Even in 88 before the magic engine rumours Senna out qualified Prost by more than half a second 6 times. That's a huge margin. I think the fact that Senna had a bigger gap between him and Prost than Schumacher did between himself and Barrichello is testament to Senna's ultimate speed.

There's something unique about Vettel's Baku crash, which I will highlight by comparing it with all the other pre-meditated collisions I know about or have witnessed, in F1:

> Senna colliding with Prost in 1990. It was a pre-meditated collision, and a horrible, dangerous example to set. However, I can see the BENEFIT behind doing it. Senna won the championship.

> Schumacher collides with Hill in 1994. Again, a despicable move, but I can see why he did it, the BENEFIT. He saw his championship disappearing, and was prepared to do anything, right or wrong.

> Schumacher on Villeneuve, 1997. Again, same as 1997. Disappearing championship, so he saw a BENEFIT to his despicable move.

> Schumacher in Monaco qualifying, 2006, parking with a fake mistake, to stop others from getting pole. Stupid move, but he saw a BENEFIT. He was losing ground in the championship, and would've thought he won't win in Monaco otherwise.

> Alonso blocking Hamilton in Hungary qualifying, 2007. Fernando was also a bit angry, but it was still a calculated move with his physio counting down on the radio, so Hamilton doesn't get pole, which according to the team's rules, Alonso should've had the last crack at.Hamilton broke the team rules, and Alonso was being unfairly punished. So, in his head, the blocking was to his BENEFIT, making sure Hamilton didn't get the upper hand.

> Rosberg in 2014 Monaco qualifying. Same as Schumacher in 2006, he was losing ground to Hamilton, and he wanted the Monaco win really badly. Of course it's cheating, but at least he saw a BENEFIT.

> Rosberg in 2014 Belgium. He was losing points to his teammate, so he saw an excuse to harm his teammate by puncturing his tyre, and worse case, both retire and he loses no points. As it is, he gained. Again, shady driving, but his mind saw a BENEFIT.

Then came Sebastian at Baku.

I try to see it from his POV, and even then, it makes no sense.

"Hamilton just brake tested me".

"I must have revenge. He should be punished results wise. So I'll complain on the radio, they'll investigate, and he would be penalised."

But then he goes and bangs his car into Hamilton's. What BENEFIT did he see? That Hamilton would retire with damage? Then I'm sure Vettel would've been disqualified AND banned for a race/races, hence losing more points. No, like the previous collisions, it was a despicable move, but the difference being, this had NO BENEFIT, and hence, was just extremely stupid.

And after a lot of thinking, I could only find one other such on-track instance in high level motorsport. At least Sebastian is in esteemed company. And that move is:

Rossi kicking Marquez on to the tarmac, in anger. Funny how Vettel's and Rossi's moves are so similar, and both are extraordinary examples of brainfade by champions.

However, Rossi's had a bigger trigger, with Marquez helping Lorenzo for a few races, and many laps of insane blocking on Rossi. Vettel lost his cool in one tiny, safety car induced, not actual brake testing. It really is an extraordinary, embarrassing brainfade, specially for a 4x WDC.

I think you are confusing this. Vettel's actions were just red mist. Red mist means you don't think logically, your anger is clouding your judgement. Senna's move was premeditated, granted. Senna's, Schumacher's and Rosberg's Monaco shenanigans as well, they had plenty of time to see that their laps were not going to cut it and thought of stalling their opposition. But Vettel just saw red in front of him, I doubt he had time to think the pro's and con's and find benefit in his action.

> Rosberg in 2014 Belgium. He was losing points to his teammate, so he saw an excuse to harm his teammate by puncturing his tyre, and worse case, both retire and he loses no points. As it is, he gained. Again, shady driving, but his mind saw a BENEFIT.

I think you are confusing this. Vettel's actions were just red mist. Red mist means you don't think logically, your anger is clouding your judgement. Senna's move was premeditated, granted. Senna's, Schumacher's and Rosberg's Monaco shenanigans as well, they had plenty of time to see that their laps were not going to cut it and thought of stalling their opposition. But Vettel just saw red in front of him, I doubt he had time to think the pro's and con's and find benefit in his action.

That was his point.

I'm not sure though. He compares Vettel's red mist moment with premeditated actions (although some of them can be debated). It's plain obvious that they are two different things! So what is the point of that post? To compare apples and oranges? Maybe that threw me off!

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

I wonder if there is a comparison of sort between the qualifying margins of the two eras; manual and semi automatic gears. I bet in the manual era the gaps would be larger, seeing that drivers would make mistakes when shifting gears. The semi automatic ones kind of ironed this out, it is extremely rare to see a quali gap of almost 2 secs in the modern era

I think you are confusing this. Vettel's actions were just red mist. Red mist means you don't think logically, your anger is clouding your judgement. Senna's move was premeditated, granted. Senna's, Schumacher's and Rosberg's Monaco shenanigans as well, they had plenty of time to see that their laps were not going to cut it and thought of stalling their opposition. But Vettel just saw red in front of him, I doubt he had time to think the pro's and con's and find benefit in his action.

That was his point.

I'm not sure though. He compares Vettel's red mist moment with premeditated actions (although some of them can be debated). It's plain obvious that they are two different things! So what is the point of that post? To compare apples and oranges? Maybe that threw me off!

I think he means that Vettel's incident was unique (compared to the others quoted) in that it was not a premeditated, rather a red-mist, or brain-fade, moment. That being the point of the post.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

I wonder if there is a comparison of sort between the qualifying margins of the two eras; manual and semi automatic gears. I bet in the manual era the gaps would be larger, seeing that drivers would make mistakes when shifting gears. The semi automatic ones kind of ironed this out, it is extremely rare to see a quali gap of almost 2 secs in the modern era

It was back then as well TBF.

But yes gaps have shrunk between team mates but less than you'd think. Especially when comparing two good standard drivers. The point is that Senna was faster compared to his peers than Schumacher. Schumacher was stronger in other areas.

I think you are confusing this. Vettel's actions were just red mist. Red mist means you don't think logically, your anger is clouding your judgement. Senna's move was premeditated, granted. Senna's, Schumacher's and Rosberg's Monaco shenanigans as well, they had plenty of time to see that their laps were not going to cut it and thought of stalling their opposition. But Vettel just saw red in front of him, I doubt he had time to think the pro's and con's and find benefit in his action.

That was his point.

I'm not sure though. He compares Vettel's red mist moment with premeditated actions (although some of them can be debated). It's plain obvious that they are two different things! So what is the point of that post? To compare apples and oranges? Maybe that threw me off!

I think he means that Vettel's incident was unique (compared to the others quoted) in that it was not a premeditated, rather a red-mist, or brain-fade, moment. That being the point of the post.

I understand this, but his post never mentions red mist, rather that there was no benefit. He mentions that it is stupid only because there is no benefit. It is not referred to as red mist or brain fart. In fact he mentions that he compares it to all the other premeditated moves, as if this is one as well.

You will disagree but I think less so in recent years. 10 or 20 years ago it was hard to find a "greatest driver" pole that didn't have Senna at the top. Now I think people generally take a more realistic view. Personally I rate him a shade better than Prost but agree that you could rate their careers pretty evenly. Both would make my top 5 GOAT and neither would be at the top of my list.

Also I think it ridiculous the claims that Senna's career was elevated because of his death, would the same be said of Jim Clark I wonder and how often do you hear of Joachim Rindt being listed among the greats because he died on the track the year he won the title?

I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Joachin Rindt was way before my time and I appreciate that you know far more about him, however he is only remembered as being the posthumous champion, I never see him being labelled as one of the greats, his reputation being exaggerated by his death.

Schumacher was the best for a decade, but this was seen as a weakened F1 with the retirement of Prost and the death of Senna, Schumacher was not seen as being better than Senna at the time they raced together, but now for some seemingly Schumacher is an all time great and Senna is a great exaggerated by his death?

This is a period of F1 that I lived through and I think these views are basically by people who didn't rate Senna that highly in the first place and now in a kind of reverse psychology use his death as an exaggeration of his ability of a driver like I say that they neither liked or rated that highly in the first place.

I lived through it and like Jim Clark before him this was seen as a death of a great, the death of a F1 flag bearer, a death which brought Murray Walker to tears and he couldn't talk and James Hunt basically had to take the microphone off him. Now we are told that his death and a film have over time just exaggerated his standing in the sport, this like I say by people who never rated him in the first place or simply didn't like him.

Wow, you really wrote a lot of carp in this post Poker, not your usual style.

Schumacher is seemingly an all time great? The weakened F1 is always an argument, for a different discussion maybe. But he "seemingly" is an all time great?

And maybe, just maybe, you are still missing the whole point. No one said that his status elevated BECAUSE of Senna's death. Just that his already high status got to silly levels after his death. And this is exactly what has happened. Senna was amazeballs when he was racing, that's not debated. But years after the Senna craze has calmed down, some people can remember that he also had a dark side, with regards to racing of course. Hell, that interview with Steward is actually there to show you that not everyone thought that what Senna touched was gold, even back then. You somehow twisted this that these claims are from people not liking Senna in the first place... And of course there may be people who never bought into the Senna craze, but you'd have to be blind not to see that the guy was the real deal.

Dying young always added some romanticism. And as bad as it sounds, I don't think some people, especially the younger generations, would know the names of Winkelhock, Pryce or Ratzenberger if it wasn't for their deaths. Of course, arguably some of them never got their chance to shine.

The seemingly was the comparison with Senna were Schumacher didn't need to be killed in order to gain a higher level of respect that Senna.

Senna was viewed as the man up to his death, even over Schumacher, if anything his death elevated Schumacher's position in F1 as he just had tier 2 drivers to contend with for a good while after that, but apparently Senna's death just exaggerated his career, he never was the man in the first place, he never was viewed as the best at that time.

There's been loads of drivers killed in F1 were is all the romanticism about these drivers, I don't see it.

In 1990, Jackie Stewart interviewed Senna about the number of controversial collisions in which Senna had been involved over the previous years, questioning why Senna “had made more contact with other cars and drivers in the last four years than all the champions before him?”

You misquoted Stewart there, his question was BS but he clearly did not know himself. He actually said.

"If you totaled up all of those great champions, the number of times they had made contact with other drivers, that you in the last 36, 48 months have been in contact with more other cars and drivers than they might have done in total"

The key word being might, so he hadn't done the research so I don't know why he thought he could ask such a question. Something proven completely wrong.

Those contacts were;90 Japan - Senna driving into Prost89 Japan - Prost closing the door on Senna89 Portugal - Mansell and Senna collide (Mansell had already been black flagged at that point and was out the race)89 Brazil - Lost his front wing at the start88 Monza - collided with back marker when lapping him87 Spa - collision with Mansell, probably Senna's fault he battled him hard.

6 collisions over 4 years, just over 1 per season.

For context of that collision rate, Hamilton had over 10 collisions during the 2011/12 seasons and Hamilton also had 4 in 2016 alone.

Vettel himself has been involved in more than 8 collisions over 2016/2017

Also I think it ridiculous the claims that Senna's career was elevated because of his death, would the same be said of Jim Clark I wonder and how often do you hear of Joachim Rindt being listed among the greats because he died on the track the year he won the title?

I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

Was you old enough to watch Senna race, Zoue?

I had that privilege, yes. I first got hooked around 1981/82. Piquet was my favourite at the time

Right, I can remember watching races in the early 80's but didn't really get hooked on it until 1984, the year that Senna debuted.

I remember thinking that Villenueve was a mad man, then Piquet sort of emerged as the best for me until he got paired with Mansell, then I saw Prost as the best until he got paired with Senna.

Also I think it ridiculous the claims that Senna's career was elevated because of his death, would the same be said of Jim Clark I wonder and how often do you hear of Joachim Rindt being listed among the greats because he died on the track the year he won the title?

I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Joachin Rindt was way before my time and I appreciate that you know far more about him, however he is only remembered as being the posthumous champion, I never see him being labelled as one of the greats, his reputation being exaggerated by his death.

Schumacher was the best for a decade, but this was seen as a weakened F1 with the retirement of Prost and the death of Senna, Schumacher was not seen as being better than Senna at the time they raced together, but now for some seemingly Schumacher is an all time great and Senna is a great exaggerated by his death?

This is a period of F1 that I lived through and I think these views are basically by people who didn't rate Senna that highly in the first place and now in a kind of reverse psychology use his death as an exaggeration of his ability of a driver like I say that they neither liked or rated that highly in the first place.

I lived through it and like Jim Clark before him this was seen as a death of a great, the death of a F1 flag bearer, a death which brought Murray Walker to tears and he couldn't talk and James Hunt basically had to take the microphone off him. Now we are told that his death and a film have over time just exaggerated his standing in the sport, this like I say by people who never rated him in the first place or simply didn't like him.

Wow, you really wrote a lot of carp in this post Poker, not your usual style.

Schumacher is seemingly an all time great? The weakened F1 is always an argument, for a different discussion maybe. But he "seemingly" is an all time great?

And maybe, just maybe, you are still missing the whole point. No one said that his status elevated BECAUSE of Senna's death. Just that his already high status got to silly levels after his death. And this is exactly what has happened. Senna was amazeballs when he was racing, that's not debated. But years after the Senna craze has calmed down, some people can remember that he also had a dark side, with regards to racing of course. Hell, that interview with Steward is actually there to show you that not everyone thought that what Senna touched was gold, even back then. You somehow twisted this that these claims are from people not liking Senna in the first place... And of course there may be people who never bought into the Senna craze, but you'd have to be blind not to see that the guy was the real deal.

Dying young always added some romanticism. And as bad as it sounds, I don't think some people, especially the younger generations, would know the names of Winkelhock, Pryce or Ratzenberger if it wasn't for their deaths. Of course, arguably some of them never got their chance to shine.

The seemingly was the comparison with Senna were Schumacher didn't need to be killed in order to gain a higher level of respect that Senna.

Senna was viewed as the man up to his death, even over Schumacher, if anything his death elevated Schumacher's position in F1 as he just had tier 2 drivers to contend with for a good while after that, but apparently Senna's death just exaggerated his career, he never was the man in the first place, he never was viewed as the best at that time.

There's been loads of drivers killed in F1 were is all the romanticism about these drivers, I don't see it.

Where are you getting these from? That's a borderline delusional opinion. Who in his right mind would say that Senna wasn't the man in the first place?

This all stems from Blake's post, which if you read properly you'll see that he says that a death tends to elevate someone's ALREADY great status.

I hope you understand how and why. No one saw him old and fat like Mansell for example not being able to fit in the car. Or past it like Jacques where his own BAR crew was laughing at him spinning around the track.

There's something unique about Vettel's Baku crash, which I will highlight by comparing it with all the other pre-meditated collisions I know about or have witnessed, in F1:

> Senna colliding with Prost in 1990. It was a pre-meditated collision, and a horrible, dangerous example to set. However, I can see the BENEFIT behind doing it. Senna won the championship.

> Schumacher collides with Hill in 1994. Again, a despicable move, but I can see why he did it, the BENEFIT. He saw his championship disappearing, and was prepared to do anything, right or wrong.

> Schumacher on Villeneuve, 1997. Again, same as 1997. Disappearing championship, so he saw a BENEFIT to his despicable move.

> Schumacher in Monaco qualifying, 2006, parking with a fake mistake, to stop others from getting pole. Stupid move, but he saw a BENEFIT. He was losing ground in the championship, and would've thought he won't win in Monaco otherwise.

> Alonso blocking Hamilton in Hungary qualifying, 2007. Fernando was also a bit angry, but it was still a calculated move with his physio counting down on the radio, so Hamilton doesn't get pole, which according to the team's rules, Alonso should've had the last crack at.Hamilton broke the team rules, and Alonso was being unfairly punished. So, in his head, the blocking was to his BENEFIT, making sure Hamilton didn't get the upper hand.

> Rosberg in 2014 Monaco qualifying. Same as Schumacher in 2006, he was losing ground to Hamilton, and he wanted the Monaco win really badly. Of course it's cheating, but at least he saw a BENEFIT.

> Rosberg in 2014 Belgium. He was losing points to his teammate, so he saw an excuse to harm his teammate by puncturing his tyre, and worse case, both retire and he loses no points. As it is, he gained. Again, shady driving, but his mind saw a BENEFIT.

Then came Sebastian at Baku.

I try to see it from his POV, and even then, it makes no sense.

"Hamilton just brake tested me".

"I must have revenge. He should be punished results wise. So I'll complain on the radio, they'll investigate, and he would be penalised."

But then he goes and bangs his car into Hamilton's. What BENEFIT did he see? That Hamilton would retire with damage? Then I'm sure Vettel would've been disqualified AND banned for a race/races, hence losing more points. No, like the previous collisions, it was a despicable move, but the difference being, this had NO BENEFIT, and hence, was just extremely stupid.

And after a lot of thinking, I could only find one other such on-track instance in high level motorsport. At least Sebastian is in esteemed company. And that move is:

Rossi kicking Marquez on to the tarmac, in anger. Funny how Vettel's and Rossi's moves are so similar, and both are extraordinary examples of brainfade by champions.

However, Rossi's had a bigger trigger, with Marquez helping Lorenzo for a few races, and many laps of insane blocking on Rossi. Vettel lost his cool in one tiny, safety car induced, not actual brake testing. It really is an extraordinary, embarrassing brainfade, specially for a 4x WDC.

Marquez messed about with Rossi because Rossi insulted Marquez by saying he was helping Lorenzo at Philip Island, the previous race, this despite the fact that Marquez passed Lorenzo for the win on the last lap.

It was mind games by Rossi who was looking to protect his lead over Lorenzo and didn't want other riders interfering with him so he looked to name and shame and you don't want to be having Rossi's army of supporters on your back.

He did this to a lesser extent with Pedrosa and his countryman Ianone as well, asking why the raced him so hard.

It was Rossi's attempt to try and control the riders around him and insulting someone like Marquez who basically is impossible to psyche out was a big, big mistake, Marquez then just went out and did what Rossi was accusing him of.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

Prost beat Senna in 1993 because he had much the better car, what is more telling is that Williams replaced Prost with Senna the year after, some forumers may think that Prost was better, the people that count in the paddock thought otherwise.

Senna was half a second quicker than Hill, this was basically the level of competition that Schumacher had left to beat, and you think Schumacher is beating Senna in 1995, 1996 and 1997 in an inferior car, really?

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

Yep in the same car Senna was faster than Prost, apart from a few outings against an old Piquet were the gap was very small, who did Schumacher beat in the same car that comes close to being as good as Prost?

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

First of all, he was considerably faster that all his teammates with the exception of Prost outside a few races where he was "inexplicably" faster when Prost knew he got every last bit of performance his car had to offer. The worst kept secret in McLaren history was the fact that Senna was Honda's golden boy and they made sure his equipment received that little bit more attention. That's not a level playing field.

Schumacher on the other hand whooped up on his teammates so easily that Brawn and company can't explain it. So good was Schumacher that his teammates would provide feedback as to what the cars were doing and they'd make changes to address the issues for his teammates but Schumacher hit the track and there was no difference in timing. As far as I know that was NEVER the case with Senna and setup changes affected him to some degree.

You're talking about level playing fields when it comes to Schumacher?

What happened to Schumacher in 2010 when Bridgestone were no longer making bespoke tyres for him?

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

First of all, he was considerably faster that all his teammates with the exception of Prost outside a few races where he was "inexplicably" faster when Prost knew he got every last bit of performance his car had to offer. The worst kept secret in McLaren history was the fact that Senna was Honda's golden boy and they made sure his equipment received that little bit more attention. That's not a level playing field.

Schumacher on the other hand whooped up on his teammates so easily that Brawn and company can't explain it. So good was Schumacher that his teammates would provide feedback as to what the cars were doing and they'd make changes to address the issues for his teammates but Schumacher hit the track and there was no difference in timing. As far as I know that was NEVER the case with Senna and setup changes affected him to some degree.

Happy to point out Senna had an alleged advantage over Prost with engines over 1989 (which ironically lost him the title if true) but no mention of Schumacher who in 1994 and 1995 at Benetton received the biggest number 1 status a driver has ever received in the modern era and that is before we get onto his Ferrari years. Interesting.

The average gap to Barrichello was also quite small. 0.3-0.4 over the season with Rubens beating him 2-3 times per year on merit whilst having his hand tied behind his back.

I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Joachin Rindt was way before my time and I appreciate that you know far more about him, however he is only remembered as being the posthumous champion, I never see him being labelled as one of the greats, his reputation being exaggerated by his death.

Schumacher was the best for a decade, but this was seen as a weakened F1 with the retirement of Prost and the death of Senna, Schumacher was not seen as being better than Senna at the time they raced together, but now for some seemingly Schumacher is an all time great and Senna is a great exaggerated by his death?

This is a period of F1 that I lived through and I think these views are basically by people who didn't rate Senna that highly in the first place and now in a kind of reverse psychology use his death as an exaggeration of his ability of a driver like I say that they neither liked or rated that highly in the first place.

I lived through it and like Jim Clark before him this was seen as a death of a great, the death of a F1 flag bearer, a death which brought Murray Walker to tears and he couldn't talk and James Hunt basically had to take the microphone off him. Now we are told that his death and a film have over time just exaggerated his standing in the sport, this like I say by people who never rated him in the first place or simply didn't like him.

Wow, you really wrote a lot of carp in this post Poker, not your usual style.

Schumacher is seemingly an all time great? The weakened F1 is always an argument, for a different discussion maybe. But he "seemingly" is an all time great?

And maybe, just maybe, you are still missing the whole point. No one said that his status elevated BECAUSE of Senna's death. Just that his already high status got to silly levels after his death. And this is exactly what has happened. Senna was amazeballs when he was racing, that's not debated. But years after the Senna craze has calmed down, some people can remember that he also had a dark side, with regards to racing of course. Hell, that interview with Steward is actually there to show you that not everyone thought that what Senna touched was gold, even back then. You somehow twisted this that these claims are from people not liking Senna in the first place... And of course there may be people who never bought into the Senna craze, but you'd have to be blind not to see that the guy was the real deal.

Dying young always added some romanticism. And as bad as it sounds, I don't think some people, especially the younger generations, would know the names of Winkelhock, Pryce or Ratzenberger if it wasn't for their deaths. Of course, arguably some of them never got their chance to shine.

The seemingly was the comparison with Senna were Schumacher didn't need to be killed in order to gain a higher level of respect that Senna.

Senna was viewed as the man up to his death, even over Schumacher, if anything his death elevated Schumacher's position in F1 as he just had tier 2 drivers to contend with for a good while after that, but apparently Senna's death just exaggerated his career, he never was the man in the first place, he never was viewed as the best at that time.

There's been loads of drivers killed in F1 were is all the romanticism about these drivers, I don't see it.

Where are you getting these from? That's a borderline delusional opinion. Who in his right mind would say that Senna wasn't the man in the first place?

This all stems from Blake's post, which if you read properly you'll see that he says that a death tends to elevate someone's ALREADY great status.

I hope you understand how and why. No one saw him old and fat like Mansell for example not being able to fit in the car. Or past it like Jacques where his own BAR crew was laughing at him spinning around the track.

I read it for what he said, that Senna's career has been exaggerated because of his death which always tends to happen, however he wouldn't be saying this about someone like Jim Clark for instance.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

I respectfully disagree. At that time, Prost was the man who had the most WDC's, and other significant records. He was king of the mountain. Yes, Senna was climbing that mountain, and getting close. But he perished before he eclipsed Prost on those records.

If Senna had lived to a ripe old age, he may have eclipsed Prost in those records. But he did not, we will never know. IMO many people assume that if Senna had not been killed, he would have held more records. But some people place Senna in the highest status based on not what he did, but what he might have done.

You're talking about level playing fields when it comes to Schumacher?

What happened to Schumacher in 2010 when Bridgestone were no longer making bespoke tyres for him?

Which raises the question, how would Vettel appear now if he didn't make the mistake of going up against a good driver in 2014 in Ricciardo. Although Vettel probably didn't realise he was taking such a risk at the time as Ricciardo looked pretty average before then.

Without 2014, Vettel's first 10 years in the sport would look exactly like Schumachers. 10 seasons, 10 wins against his team mate. 4 world titles. Maybe if Vettel went his entire career without going against a top driver he would be in the greatest of all time discussion too.

Its a shame that Schumacher only went against a top driver once he was old and rusty. Senna, joined Prosts team and was quicker from the very first test. But as we saw in 2014, if you have a car that is the class of the field but has a mechanical issue 40% of the time then no matter who is in your cars the wins will be pretty equal. That is 1988. 1989 is an extreme version (in terms of reliability for the better driver) of 2016 with Senna as Hamilton. That is doing Rosberg a bit of a disservice though as he was a lot closer to Hamilton than Prost was to Senna.

Not a Prost bash, but he only won races when Senna had issues. If neither had issues, Senna won. The counter to that is that Prost had better mechanical sympathy, which may well be true but during 1988 Prost actually had more mechanical issues than Senna (but they occurred when he was running 2nd place anyway). For the record, Senna, Schumacher and Prost are my top 3 drivers of all time (1983 onwards since I've been watching)

Last edited by lamo on Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

I respectfully disagree. At that time, Prost was the man who had the most WDC's, and other significant records. He was king of the mountain. Yes, Senna was climbing that mountain, and getting close. But he perished before he eclipsed Prost on those records.

If Senna had lived to a ripe old age, he may have eclipsed Prost in those records. But he did not, we will never know. IMO many people assume that if Senna had not been killed, he would have held more records. But some people place Senna in the highest status based on not what he did, but what he might have done.

So according to you Hamilton is at least the third greatest F1 driver of all time, I can live with that.

Regarding Prost if he was the best why did Williams sign Senna knowing they would lose Prost by doing so?

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

I respectfully disagree. At that time, Prost was the man who had the most WDC's, and other significant records. He was king of the mountain. Yes, Senna was climbing that mountain, and getting close. But he perished before he eclipsed Prost on those records.

If Senna had lived to a ripe old age, he may have eclipsed Prost in those records. But he did not, we will never know. IMO many people assume that if Senna had not been killed, he would have held more records. But some people place Senna in the highest status based on not what he did, but what he might have done.

Since when did anybody other than casual's use purely records to determine drivers?

Vettel had 4 WDC's in 2013, whilst Alonso had 2 from nearly a decade before. Yes the consensus was that Alonso was the better driver.

Last edited by lamo on Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

Prost beat Senna in 1993 because he had much the better car, what is more telling is that Williams replaced Prost with Senna the year after, some forumers may think that Prost was better, the people that count in the paddock thought otherwise.

Senna was half a second quicker than Hill, this was basically the level of competition that Schumacher had left to beat, and you think Schumacher is beating Senna in 1995, 1996 and 1997 in an inferior car, really?

This is a bit over simplistic though.

Hill only got a sniff of Schumacher because of the penalties in '94. It is true that Hill was nowhere near Senna's level and it is true that Schumacher didn't have a Prost to compete against. But Senna was getting older and he would have been 37 in 1997, he was already feeling uneasy when refuelling was brought back in and the speeds where getting faster. Do you honestly think 100% that Schumacher couldn't have beat him? Bear in mind that Senna wanted to finish at Ferrari according to LdM, so we would never know how that would have played.

Hill only got a sniff of Schumacher because of the penalties in '94. It is true that Hill was nowhere near Senna's level and it is true that Schumacher didn't have a Prost to compete against. But Senna was getting older and he would have been 37 in 1997, he was already feeling uneasy when refuelling was brought back in and the speeds where getting faster. Do you honestly think 100% that Schumacher couldn't have beat him? Bear in mind that Senna wanted to finish at Ferrari according to LdM, so we would never know how that would have played.

I don't think Senna would have won 1994 as he would be 30-0 down...

But Senna out qualified Hill by an average of 0.7 in there 3 races and in the only race they did (Brazil) Senna was just about to lap him and both had clean races. Schumacher lapped Hill in 4 of the first 6 races in 1994. That is how bad the Williams was.

That is the same Hill, who beat Schumacher head to head in the wet later in the year in Japan, lost some other races narrowly and hounded him around Adelaide in the final round all race before they collided. Senna in the mid season onwards Williams would have been walking races.

The 1995 Williams was also the class of the field, Hill completely messed that title up.